Concern has been growing in recent days over energy consumption in the United States and abroad. The cost of energy has steadily risen as power utilities try to cope with continually growing demand, increasing fuel prices, and stricter regulatory mandates. Power utilities must also maintain existing infrastructure, while simultaneously finding ways to add more generation capacity to meet future needs, both of which are expensive. Moreover, burgeoning energy consumption continues to negatively impact the environment and deplete natural resources.
Such concerns underlie recent industry and governmental efforts to strive for a better balance between energy supply and consumption. For example, the Zero Net Energy (ZNE) concept, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, promotes the ideal of a building with ZNE consumption, in that the total energy used by the building annually balances with the total energy generated on-site. In California, the 2013 Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR) builds on earlier ZNE goals for California by mandating that all new residential and all new commercial construction be ZNE compliant, respectively, by 2020 and 2030. The IEPR also goes a bit further to define a building as consuming zero net energy, where the net amount of energy produced by on-site renewable energy resources roughly equals the value of the energy consumed by the building annually.
Balancing energy use is challenging. The average consumer continually consumes energy for many different purposes, all of which effect, either directly or implicitly, energy costs and the environment. At home, energy may be consumed for space heating and cooling, lighting, cooking, powering appliances and electrical devices, heating water, and doing laundry. As well, energy may originate from different supply sources, including energy purchased from a power utility or, less frequently, generated on-site. In addition, where walking, bicycling or other physical modes of travel are impracticable, energy may also be used for personal transportation, whether via private conveyance or by public mass transit.
The net effect of personal energy use adds up. Making any kind of change is a two-fold problem that requires careful deliberation, which first requires knowing, in tangible terms, what energy is consumed for what purpose. Energy used for personal transportation can be readily determined based on regular travel patterns and the average costs of fuel and vehicle maintenance. However, absent a detailed energy audit, the contributions of individual components in the home to overall energy consumption are less certain, and establishing a baseline of personal home energy consumption can be difficult due to the range of unknowns. For instance, the cost of electricity tends to be variable, based on season, time of day, and amount consumed, yet calculating electricity costs requires precisely knowing how much electricity is consumed by what components at what times.
Once energy consumption knowledge has been established, changing personal energy consumption requires determining what energy options or alternatives exist that work most efficaciously and, if applicable, which best move the consumer towards a ZNE consumption paradigm. Choosing between energy options and alternatives requires evaluating how home and vehicle selections affect energy consumption, and knowing how energy supply decisions affect costs and environmental impact. However, conventional ways to help consumers make sound energy option and alternative choices have been inadequate due to the option space that must be explored, and forecasting the expected balance between the costs versus benefits of different option scenarios has been unsatisfactory.
Therefore, a need remains for an approach to empowering consumers, particularly residential customers, with answers on personal energy consumption and understanding what options and alternatives work best for their energy needs.